UC-NRLF 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


ROBERT  J.  WALKER 
IMPERIALIST 


WILLIAM  EDWARD  DODD 


Robert  J.Walker 
Imperialist 


By 
William  Edward  Dodd 


Chicago  Literary  Club 
1914 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


COPYRIGHT,  1914 
CHICAGO  LITERARY  CLUB 


ROBERT  J.  WALKER 
IMPERIALIST 

HAT  the  remains  of  one  of 
the  ablest  of  American  sec 
retaries  of  the  treasury,  of 
a  politician  whose  exploits 
were  discussed  all  around 
the  world,  of  a  maker  of 
presidents  and  a  "  Savior 
of  the  Union, ' '  should  rest 
nearly  forty  years  in  an  unmarked  grave  in 
an  obscure  cemetery  is  one  of  the  contrasts 
of  fortune  which  might  give  concern  even  to 
the  boldest  wooers  of  fame.  But  to  have 
played  such  a  role  and  then  have  one's  name 
written  one  way  on  one's  tombstone  and 
another  on  the  pages  of  history  is  almost  as 
bad  as  to  be  forgotten  altogether.  Such  was, 
however,  the  fate  of  Robert  James  Walker,1 
secretary  of  the  treasury  under  James  K. 

1  The  Library  of  Congress  gives  the  name  on  its 
catalogue  as  Robert  James  Walker;  Appleton's  En 
cyclopedia  prints  it  Robert  John  Walker;  and  on  the 
tombstone  in  Oak  Hill  cemetery,  Washington,  it  is 
written  Robert  John  Walker. 


M307H14 

J) 


Polk,  author  of  the  best  tariff  law  known 
to  our  statute  books,1  and  the  greatest  im 
perialist  who  ever  violated  the  most  solemn  of 
all  American  declarations.  Such  a  post-mor 
tem  might  suggest  a  very  tame  and  prosaic 
biography.  Not  so  in  the  case  of  Walker, 
whose  life  was  as  crowded  with  event  and 
vicissitude  as  ever  the  tale  of  a  novelist. 
Yet  neither  story-teller  nor  sober  historian 
ever  stumbled  upon  the  subject,  and  the 
records  themselves  have  all  but  perished. 

Born  of  good  parentage  in  Northum 
berland,  Pennsylvania,  on  July  23/1801,  he 
grew  up  in  the  midst  of  the  democratic  up- 
country  which  saw  in  Thomas  Jefferson  the 
ideal  of  American  life.  Young  Walker  was 
sent  at  an  early  age  to  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  where  he  graduated  in  July, 
1819,  at  the  head  of  his  class.  He  next 
appears  as  a  surveyor  for  a  land  company 
in  the  northwest  corner  of  the  state,  but  in 
this  raw  region  his  principal  interest  was  the 
study  of  law,  for  in  three  years  he  was  ready 
to  begin  the  practice  of  that  profession ;  and 
he  located  in  Pittsburgh  in  1 822.2 

When  at  college  he  seems  to  have  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Mary  Bache,  the  grand 
daughter  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  and  they 

1  Compare  Taussig,  F.  W.,  The  Tariff  History  of 
the  United  States,  109-154. 

1  Brown,  G.  W.,  Reminiscences  of  Gov.  R.J.  Walker, 
Rockford,  111.,  1902,  pp.  24-25. 

8 


were  married  soon  after  he  settled  in  the 
busy  little  city  on  the  Ohio.  Thus  he  be 
came  a  member  of  the  powerful  Bache  and 
Dallas  families  so  well  known  to  the  country 
in  the  years  just  preceding  the  civil  war. 
His  father  was  then  a  judge  of  the  state 
supreme  court;  his  wife's  father  had  been 
postmaster-general  during  the  Revolution, 
and  his  brother-in-law,  George  M.  Dallas, 
was  already  winning  fame  as  assistant  United 
States  district  attorney  for  eastern  Penn 
sylvania. 

The  Dallas  influence  in  Pennsylvania  had 
already  been  given  to  the  cause  of  Andrew 
Jackson  and  young  Walker  made  an  address 
before  an  enthusiastic  gathering  in  Pitts 
burgh  in  the  autumn  of  1823,  urging  upon 
the  voters  of  the  state  the  wisdom  of  sup 
porting  the  doughty  warrior  for  President 
the  next  year.  When  the  Republican  state 
convention  met  at  Harrisburg  the  follow 
ing  spring  the  speech  of  the  ' '  little  lawyer  " 
from  Pittsburgh  was  made  the  formal  ad 
dress  of  the  party  to  the  people  of  the  coun 
try.1  It  was  a  lucky  stroke,  for  to  have 
been  an  ' '  original  Jackson  man ' '  soon  came 
to  be  an  open  sesame  for  the  highest  honors 
in  the  land. 

Jackson  did  not  win  in  1824,  but  most 
people  in  Pittsburgh  thought  he  ought  to 
have  won  and  that  Henry  Clay  and  John 

1  Natchez  Statesman  and  Gazette,  July  3, 1828. 


Quincy  Adams  had,  with  sinister  purpose, 
conspired  to  deprive  him  of  his  right  to 
the  high  office  to  which  he  had  aspired. 
Two  years  later  Robert  Walker  followed  his 
brother  Duncan  to  the  then  far-off  Natchez 
on  the  lower  Mississippi,  where  he  became 
a  member  of  the  law  firm  of  "Walker  and 
Walker."1  The  older  brother  died  three 
years  later  and  Robert  came  into  a  practice 
of  great  value  and  importance.  His  friends 
and  associates  were  Joseph  Davis,  brother 
of  Jefferson  Davis,  John  A.  Quitman,  and 
others,  soon  to  win  national  reputations  as 
leaders  and  spokesmen  of  the  growing  South 
west. 

There  was  no  more  interesting  or  lively 
community  in  the  United  States  than  the 
Mississippi  of  1830.  With  a  population  of 
136,000,  nearly  half  of  whom  were  slaves, 
millions  of  acres  of  rich  lands  ready  for 
occcupation,  and  the  stimulus  of  sudden 
wealth  promised  by  the  ever-increasing  de 
mand  for  cotton,  it  was  but  natural  that 
" times1'  should  be  "flush"  and  that  men 
should  be  reckless.  Fortunes  were  won  in 
a  few  years  and  great  plantations  speedily 
took  the  places  of  canebrakes  and  stagnant 
swamps.  Joseph  Davis  had  gone  to  Nat 
chez  a  poor  man ;  he  was  now  a  great  law 
yer  and  a  master  of  many  slaves.  James 
C.  Wilkins,  of  Pennsylvania,  had  begun  with 

Natchez  Statesman  and  Gazette,  January  31, 1828. 

10 


little  capital ;  he  was  now  the  head  of  a 
bank  which  controlled  the  currency  of  the 
whole  state.  Money-making  was  a  mania 
and  everybody  had  a  hand  in  speculations, 
large  or  small.  To  resist  this  regime  or  to 
refuse  to  endorse  for  a  friend  was  frequent 
ly  the  occasion  for  a  duel.  "A  Mr. 

brought  a  letter  of  introduction  from  a 
friend.  I  endorsed  his  bill  for  one  thou 
sand  dollars  and  had  it  discounted  for  him. 
It  came  back  protested.  Do  you  know  where 
he  is  or  anything  about  him?"  Another 
comment  on  these  ' '  flush  times ' '  runs :  "I 
should  like  to  get  a  contract  for  building  a 
section  of  the  Mississippi  railroad.  I  owe 
about  $2 50,000.  But  I  am  planting  fifteen 
hundred  acres  in  cotton  and  I  own  three 
large  plantations  well  stocked  with  negroes. 
The  paper  now  due  I  could  discharge  with 
my  cotton  crop ;  but  by  that  time  another  in 
stalment  falls  due,  so  I  must  draw  on  next 
year's  crop  or  go  to  work  on  the  railroad. 
If  I  could  only  arrange  with  your  bank  to 
draw  in  anticipation  of  my  work,  you  might 
pay  my  debts,  supply  provisions  and  so 
forth,  and  a  few  thousand  dollars  for  pocket 
money  and  a  trip  to  the  springs,  and  I  will 
forthwith  put  two  hundred  able-bodied  ne 
groes  on  the  road" — this  from  a  man  who 
three  years  before  had  scarce  owned  a  pen 
ny's  worth  1 

But  the  greatest  subject  of  exploitation 


ii 


was  the  Indian,  who  still  owned  vast  areas  of 
lands  in  the  West.  From  Illinois  to  Lou 
isiana  the  hardy  pioneers,  whose  characters 
we  are  so  prone  to  idealize  to-day,  were 
ruthlessly  despoiling,  without  pretense  of 
legal  right,  the  helpless  natives.  The  very 
basis  of  Jackson's  power  was  his  free  license 
to  the  westerners  to  work  their  wills  upon 
these  wards  of  the  nation.  Nowhere  was 
this  spirit  more  rampant  than  in  Mississippi, 
where  some  fifteen  thousand  square  miles 
of  land  was  still  in  the  hands  of  the  Indians 
and  hotly  coveted  by  cotton  planters  and 
small  farmers  alike.  In  February,  1831,  the 
treaty  of  Dancing  Rabbit  gave  the  Missis- 
sippians  conditional  possession  of  all  this 
land.  Public  land  sales  were  announced 
in  1833  only  a  short  forty  days  before  the 
auctioneer  was  to  begin  his  work.  The 
Indians,  who  were  still  trying  to  save  them 
selves  by  showing  the  illegality  of  the  treaty, 
were  in  the  greatest  distress ;  and  the  army 
of  squatters  already  on  the  public  domain 
were  hardly  less  disturbed  by  this  sudden 
turn  of  things.  Only  the  land  agents  and 
their  friends  who  had  prepared  this  stroke 
were  happy. 

Into  this  situation  Walker  plunged  with 
an  abandon  suggestive  of  his  future  career. 
He  organized  some  two  hundred  of  the  pros 
pective  purchasers  into  an  association  of 
which  he  became  principal  spokesman  and 

12 


beneficiary.  These  gentlemen,  men  of  the 
first  consequence  in  Mississippi  and  the 
neighboring  states,  Government  officials,  di 
rectors  of  banks,  and  judges  of  the  courts, 
entered  into  an  agreement  whereby  they 
were  not  to  bid  against  each  other  at  any  of 
the  sales  of  public  lands.  Walker  and  his 
appointees  were  to  manage  the  bidding  and 
afterwards  apportion  the  proceeds.  They 
made  arrangements  with  squatters  and  small 
farmers  to  procure  for  them  their  little  tracts 
on  condition  that  they  would  not  bid  against 
the  association.  The  charge  for  this  service 
was  a  dollar  an  acre  above  the  Government 
minimum.  And  this  scheme  of  defrauding 
the  country  was  so  popular  that  Walker 
was  given  a  public  dinner  by  the  farmers 
and  squatters  at  the  conclusion  of  the  sales 
at  Choccuma.1 

The  plan  of  the  association  was  carried 
out  everywhere,  the  Federal  land  officers 
lending  their  aid  and  receiving  their  reward; 
and  Walker  and  his  friends  thus  came  into 
possession  of  great  tracts  of  land  which  were 
easily  sold  at  prices  ranging  from  two  to 
twenty  dollars  per  acre.  Many  of  the  for 
tunes  of  the  lower  South  were  the  result  of 
this  campaign  against  the  treasury  of  the 
United  States ;  but  it  might  be  regarded  as 
ungracious,  even  at  this  late  day,  to  publish 

1  American  State  Papers,  Public  Lands t  VII,  448- 
64;  also  VIII, /I  I-/88. 

13 


a  list  of  the  names  of  the  men  who  at  that 
time  made  no  denial  of  their  part  in  the 
transaction.1 

The  scandal  of  the  land  sales  of  October, 
1833,  was  so  great  that  Senator  Poindexter, 
one  of  the  foremost  public  men  of  the  time, 
succeeded  in  getting  an  investigation  of  the 
subject,  and  a  report  was  made  to  the  sen 
ate  in  the  summer  of  1834,  which  showed 
something  of  the  character  of  Walker's  work 
in  this  his  first  important  undertaking.  Sen 
ators  from  Tennessee,  Alabama,  and  Louisi 
ana  resisted  Poindexter 's  efforts  to  give  the 
widest  publicity  to  the  report,  and  especially 
his  proposition  to  punish  the  guilty  parties. 
Nothing  was  done  except  to  print  the  report, 
which  appeared  in  many  newspapers  of  the 
time  without  any  severe  criticism  of  the 
transaction.  Henry  Clay  and  Daniel  Web 
ster  supported  the  investigation,  while 
others  said  that  the  practice  of  defrauding 
the  Government  had  gone  so  far  and  in 
volved  so  many  eminent  characters  that  it 
was  well-nigh  impossible  to  punish  anyone.2 

Poindexter  had  raised  a  dangerous  issue 
in  Mississippi  and  his  defeat  was  demanded 
at  the  coming  election.  Now,  the  distin- 

iSee  Riley,  F.  L.,  Publications  of  the  Mississippi 
•  Historical  Society,  VIII,  345-395,  for  story  of  the 
Choctaw  land  frauds  which  grew  out  of  these  opera 
tions. 

1 Register  of  Debates  in  Congress,  X,  pt.  I,  43;  Ibid., 
754-755, 812-14. 

14 


guished  senator  was  none  too  strong  with 
the  people  at  best ;  his  attack  upon  the  land 
thieves,  numerous  as  they  were,  only  added 
to  his  troubles.  Besides,  he  had  broken  with 
Jackson,  who  had  charged  him  with  having 
instigated  the  recent  attack  upon  his  life. 
From  an  ardent  supporter  in  1828  he  be 
came  an  opponent  when  Calhoun  had  been 
driven  out  of  the  Presidential  counsels  in  the 
spring  of  1831.  In  the  Jackson-Clay  cam 
paign  of  the  next  year  Poindexter  had  been 
the  most  ardent  Clay  and  bank  champion. 
This  completed  the  Presidential  condemna 
tion,  and  the  Mississippi  senator  was  hence 
forth  a  marked  man.  Poindexter  had  long 
been  the  most  ardent  of  the  southern  nation 
alists;  he  now  became  an  extreme  state's 
rights  advocate  and  follower  of  Calhoun.1 

Walker,  who  now  began  a  two-years'  cam 
paign  against  his  former  friend,  Poindexter, 
had  already  won  his  spurs  in  Mississippi 
politics.  His  championship  of  Jackson  had 
been  of  the  greatest  importance  in  1828,  and 
in  the  fight  in  the  lower  South  against  Nulli 
fication  he  was  an  acknowledged  leader ;  it 
was  his  influence  which  in  large  measure 
caused  the  defeat  of  the  Calhoun  party  in 
the  Mississippi  legislature  in  the  winter  of 
1833.  At  the  time  he  organized  his  raid 
on  the  public  lands  he  was  proclaiming  his 

Rowland,  Dunbar,  Encyclopedia  of  Mississippi, 
"Poindexter." 

IS 


everlasting  devotion  to  the  Union.  But  the 
greatest  of  his  political  undertakings  to  date 
was  begun  in  1834,  when  he  served  notice 
on  Poindexter  that  he  would  contest  with 
him  the  right  to  represent  Mississippi  in 
the  United  States  senate.  For  two  years 
the  battle  waged.  Every  device  known  to 
American  politics  was  resorted  to.  Poin 
dexter  had  ceased  to  represent  the  people  of 
his  state,  it  was  charged ;  he  had  slandered 
some  of  the  best  names  in  the  Southwest; 
he  had  tried  to  assassinate  the  President  of 
the  United  States. 

Henry  Clay  lent  his  influence  to  this  bit 
ter  enemy  of  Jackson;  Sergeant  Prentiss 
rose  to  fame  in  the  defense  of  Poindexter; 
and  the  budding  Whig  party  of  that  region 
identified  its  fortunes  with  those  of  the  great 
senator.  But  the  Jackson  administration 
favored  Walker;  the  small  farmers  were 
enthusiastic  in  his  behalf ;  speculators  were 
even  more  closely  identified  with  his  cause ; 
and  in  order  to  make  a  strong  local  appeal 
to  the  eastern  section  of  the  state  he  pur 
chased  a  plantation  in  Madison  county  and 
took  up  his  residence  there.  He  pleased 
the  squatter  element  by  urging  as  a  part  of 
his  policy  the  free  homestead  idea,  which 
became  law  only  under  Lincoln  thirty  years 
later ;  he  attracted  the  religious  element  by 
adopting  the  revivalist  methods  of  Lorenzo 
Dow,  the  famous  itinerant  evangelist.  The 
16 


Gwins  helped  him  finance  his  campaign,  and 
Henry  S.  Foote,  later  of  " hangman  "  fame 
in  the  United  States  senate,  supplied  a  bil 
lingsgate  oratory  which  equalled,  if  it  did 
not  surpass,  that  of  Poindexter  himself.  The 
outcome  was  a  decided  victory  for  Walker, 
though  the  election  in  the  legislature1  became 
at  once  the  subject  of  an  investigation,  which, 
however,  only  led  to  a  "whitewash." 

Walker  was  now  thirty-six  years  old  and 
a  member  of  the  United  States  senate.  In 
appearance  he  was  anything  but  prepos 
sessing;  he  resembled,  somewhat,  Alex 
ander  Stephens,  the  homeliest  man  who 
ever  sat  in  congress ;  he  was  thin,  angular, 
and  a  dyspeptic  who  was  frequently  unable 
to  be  at  his  post  of  duty;  but  he  was  withal  a 
man  of  towering  ambition,  a  consummate 
intriguer  and  as  versatile  in  all  the  arts  of 
the  politician  as  if  he  had  been  "bred  to  the 
trade."  "The  Wizard  of  Mississippi"  he 
was  called,  and  the  title  was  apt ;  he  was  the 
first  of  modern  bosses.  And  he  gave  the 
public  an  inkling  of  his  personal  pretensions 
when  he  reminded  the  senate  that  he  had 
taken  his  seat  on  the  anniversary  of  Wash 
ington's  birth.2 

Clay  did  not  relish  the  presence  or  the 

1  The  Mississippian,  J  an.  3 1 , 1 836 ;  and  for  the  cam 
paign  see  ibid.,  Oct,  9, 1830,  Dec.  18, 1835,  and  Jan. 
31,1836. 

1  Register  of  Debates  in  Congress t  Vol.  12,  part  I, 
1175-76. 

17 


s 


pretensions  of  the  new  member,  and  he 
promptly  reminded  Walker  of  the  disastrous 
effect  of  any  comparison  of  himself  with 
the  ' '  Father  of  his  Country. ' '  This  was  but 
the  beginning  of  the  hazing  which  leading 
senators  gave  the  ambitious  newcomer. 
But  treatment  of  this  kind  did  not  disturb 
the  man  who  had  completely  captivated  the 
people  of  his  state  and  who  was  presently 
to  become  the  spokesman  of  Andrew  Jack 
son  in  the  "most  august  legislative  body 
in  the  world. ' '  The  new  member  stood  tri 
umphantly  in  the  place  of  the  man  who  had 
only  a  short  while  before  denounced  him 
before  the  country,  and  he  confronted  Henry 
Clay,  who  had  advised  criminal  prosecutions 
against  him  and  his  friends.  And  Walker 
was  not  the  man  to  conceal  his  delight  at 
the  embarrassment  of  his  foes.1 

Until  Walker  appeared  in  the  senate 
Thomas  H.  Benton  had  been  the  acknowl 
edged  mouthpiece  of  the  West  in  that  body; 
but  the  young  senator  at  once  took  place  as 
a  western  member  whose  views  must  count. 
Benton  was  the  advocate  of  very  liberal  land 
laws ;  Walker  proposed  the  free  homestead 
policy.  Benton  had  long  been  urging  the 
quiet  purchase  of  Texas ;  Walker  raised  the 
cry  of  the  immediate  * '  reannexation "  of 
Texas  without  consulting  the  wishes  of  any 

1  Register  of  Debates  in  Congress ;  Vol.  12,  part  I, 
1029,1172-73. 

18 


other  country.  Within  a  year  the  little  man 
from  Mississippi  had  superseded  Benton  as 
the  distinctly  western  senator,  and  he  took 
the  almost  insufferable  position  of  ignoring 
Clay  and  Webster.  Calhoun  he  patronized 
and  labored  with  in  the  hope  that  that  fa 
mous  statesman  might  rise  to  the  highest 
level  of  national  statesmanship.  The  South, 
more  sensitive  now  than  ever  on  the  subject 
of  slavery,  he  embraced  in  a  way  that  took 
no  denial,  for,  on  behalf  of  "our  peculiar 
institution,"  he  declared  himself  ready  at 
any  time  to  go  to  war  with  a  world  in  arms, 
confident  that  the  South  would  emerge  tri 
umphant.1  Within  the  two  years,  for  which 
time  he  had  been  elected,  he  won  a  place 
among  the  foremost  Democratic  senators, 
representing  all  that  the  West  demanded 
and  distancing  Calhoun  in  his  readiness 
to  fight  for  southern  rights.  In  Missis 
sippi  his  meteoric  rise  attracted  universal 
applause,  and  when  the  time  came  for  a 
second  election,  delegations  of  prominent 
men,  many  of  whom  had  formerly  opposed 
him,  visited  him  and  urged  him  to  do  what 
he  had  intended  to  do  from  the  first, — 
' '  stand  again ' '  for  the  senate.  ' '  Nothing 
succeeds  like  success ' '  is  a  favorite  Ameri 
can  adage,  and  so  it  proved  in  Walker's 
case.  He  was  re-elected  by  an  almost  unani 
mous  vote. 

1  Register  of  Debates  in  Congress,  March  2, 1836. 
19 


At  the  head  of  his  party  in  Mississippi 
and  a  powerful  leader  in  national  affairs, 
he  gave  his  counsel  to  and  assumed  re 
sponsibility  for  the  wildest  financial  manip 
ulations  ever  espoused  by  an  American 
commonwealth.  Under  Walker's  leader 
ship  Mississippi  borrowed  more  than  ten 
million  dollars  from  Nicholas  Biddle  and 
his  clients  on  state  credit  and  then  loaned 
the  money  to  planters  and  others  in  need 
of  funds  on  the  uncertain  security  of  lands 
and  slaves.  Walker,  himself,  is  said  to 
have  borrowed  huge  sums  and  even  to  have 
taken,  without  security,  a  portion  of  the  sink 
ing  fund  of  the  state  banks,  whose  directors 
were  the  medium  of  all  these  transactions.1 
Nobody  seems  to  have  thought  that  a  debt 
of  ten  millions  was  any  burden  to  a  popula 
tion  of  less  than  four  hundred  thousand,  in 
cluding  slaves. 

When  the  day  of  reckoning  came  Walker 
and  his  party  escaped  the  natural  result 
by  inducing  the  legislature  to  repudiate 
practically  the  whole  debt  and  on  the  pre 
text  that  Nicholas  Biddle  had  negotiated 
with  the  agents  of  the  state  a  loan  which 
was  contrary  to  the  mandates  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  constitution !  Before  1844  the  slate 
was  clean  and  Walker  gave  himself  no  con 
cern  about  the  transaction,  while  it  was  quite 
generally  regarded  as  a  fine  stroke  to  have 

1 6  Howard's  Mississippi  Reports,  143. 
20 


outwitted  the  President  of  the  "  monster 
bank ' '  whom  most  followers  of  Jackson  felt 
to  be  legitimate  prey  for  honest  Democrats. 
Walker  suffered,  however,  in  his  personal 
fortunes,  and  he  was  brought  to  the  humili 
ating  necessity  of  promising  his  creditor, 
Martin  Van  Buren,  a  lien  on  his  meagre 
salary  as  senator.1 

He  was,  therefore,  almost  a  penniless  man 
when  he  was 'a  most  powerful  senator,  inti 
mate  with  the  President,  and  an  adviser  in 
all  that  came  before  the  Van  Buren  admin 
istration.  The  Whig  ' '  landslide  "  of  1 840 
did  not  seriously  affect  his  fortunes,  for 
upon  the  death  of  Harrison  he  was  speedily 
restored  to  the  position  of  confidential  friend 
of  President  Tyler.  He  claims,  I  think 
with  justice,  a  large  share  in  the  shaping  of 
Tyler's  financial  policy  and  in  first  directing 
the  attention  of  the  Government  to  the  im 
portance  of  establishing  diplomatic  relations 
with  China  and  Japan. 

But  the  greatest  work  of  Walker  before 
the  civil  war  was  that  of  the  year  1844, 
when  he  became  the  author  of  the  whole 
national  program.  In  the  autumn  of  1843 
some  Kentucky  Democrats,  at  a  meeting 
in  Carroll  county,  nominated  the  "Honora 
ble  Robert  J.  Walker"  vice-president  and 
sent  him  a  letter  asking  him  for  an  expres- 

1  Van  Buren  Manuscripts,  letter  of  Walker,  dated 
Feb.  8, 1 841. 


21 


sion  of  his  views  on  the  Texas  question. 
Walker  replied  to  this  request  in  a  pamphlet 
of  some  forty  pages,  in  which  he  showed  how 
"all  Texas  and  all  Oregon"  had  long  been 
the  property  of  the  United  States  and  that 
it  was  the  duty  of  the  Democratic  party  to 
reassert  the  rights  of  the  country  to  these 
vast  possessions,  regardless  of  what  Eng 
land  might  have  to  say.  He  gave  out  his 
reply  on  the  auspicious  8th  of  January,  then 
celebrated  everywhere  as  Jackson  day,  and 
it  speedily  passed  through  several  editions. 
Few  pamphlets  have  stirred  up  more  dis 
cussion  or  had  a  more  far-reaching  effect. 
The  main  idea, that  the  United  States  should 
assume  a  thoroughly  imperialistic  tone  and 
take  what  was  wanted  at  the  risk  of  war 
with  England,  was  supported  by  the  most 
specious  reasoning.  When  the  Democratic 
convention  met  in  Baltimore,  in  the  follow 
ing  May,  Walker  was  as  much  the  master  of 
the  majority  of  the  delegates  as  was  Mr. 
Bryan  in  a  similar  body  in  191 2. l 

Of  course  the  way  had  been  long  pre 
paring  for  the  adoption,  by  one  of  the  great 
parties,  of  the  Walker  policy.  Tyler  and 
Calhoun  had  committed  the  Government  to 
this  program,  while  Van  Buren  had  sought 
to  moderate  and  control  the  enthusiastic  im- 

1  Van  Buren  Manuscripts,  Library  of  Congress; 
letter  of  J.  L.  O' Sullivan  to  Van  Buren  from  the 
Convention  Hall,  May  27,  1844  ;  National  Intelligen 
cer,  May  28,1844. 

22 


perialists.  But  Walker,  regardless  of  his 
close  and  friendly  relations  with  Van  Buren, 
brushed  aside  that  powerful  leader,  wrote 
his  pamphlet  into  the  platform,  and  then 
brought  about  the  nomination  of  his  favorite, 
James  K.  Polk,  for  President,  and  his  brother- 
in-law,  George  M.  Dallas,  for  Vice-President. 
Every  one  acknowledged  the  power  of  the 
little  senator,  and  in  the  national  campaign 
which  ensued  he  was  again  the  astute  and 
resourceful  manager  he  had  been  in  his 
great  fight  against  Poindexter  in  Missis 
sippi.1  The  opposing  candidate  was  Henry 
Clay,  who  drew  to  himself  the  conservative 
forces  of  the  country  and  for  whom  the 
greatest  exertions  were  made,  but  without 
avail.  Walker  was  only  less  successful  than 
he  had  been  in  his  earlier  undertakings,  and 
it  was  exultantly  said  that  "this  is  the  last 
of  Clay, '  *  which  proved  to  be  the  fact.  The 
election  of  Polk  was  but  the  outcome  of  the 
union  of  South  and  West  against  New  Eng 
land  ;  it  foreshadowed  a  hasty  and  resolute 
imperialism  in  accordance  with  western  and 
southern  purposes.2 

Having  brought  about  a  revolution  in  pol- 

1  National  Intelligencer,  Oct.  3  and  29, 1844,  shows 
that  Walker  published  and  circulated  a  pamphlet, 
"The  South  in  Danger, "in  two  editions  one  for  the 
South,  the  other  for  the  North. 

2  See  the  author's  study  of  "  The  West  and  the  War 
with  Mexico"  in  journal  of  the  Illinois  State  Histori 
cal  Society,  July,  1912,  pp.  159-172. 

<•    23 


itics  it  was  but  natural  that  Walker  should 
seek  to  direct  the  course  of  events.  The 
president-elect  invited  him  to  become  at 
torney-general.  Walker  refused  the  honor 
and  asked  for  what  he  considered  the  first 
position  in  the  cabinet,  that  of  secretary  of 
the  treasury.  Polk  could  not  or  dared  not 
refuse;  and  the  man  who  had  completely 
bankrupted  himself  and  his  state  and  had 
brought  dishonor  upon  all  who  had  been  al 
lied  with  him  in  financial  matters  became 
head  of  the  national  treasury,  and  it  must 
be  said  in  his  honor  that  he  has  ever  since 
been  regarded  as  one  of  the  greatest  secre 
taries  of  the  treasury  we  have  ever  had. 

But  the  primary  business  of  a  cabinet 
officer  is  to  guide  the  policy  of  the  country, 
not  to  watch  the  subordinates  in  his  de 
partment.  Walker  so  regarded  his  task, 
and  he  began  very  early  to  urge -upon  the 
President  the  necessity  of  annexing  all 
Mexico,  not  merely  Texas ;  while  his  party 
friends  and  intimates  in  the  Northwest,  like 
Senator  Breese  of  Illinois,  insisted  that  all 
Canada  must  likewise  be  "benevolently 
assimilated. '  *  Polk  resisted,  but  not  with 
entire  success,  as  the  Mexican  cessions  of 
1848  attest,  and  the  country  was  thoroughly 
infatuated  with  the  expansionist  mania,  if 
one  may  believe  the  contemporary  news 
papers  and  the  speeches  of  members  of  con 
gress.  As  the  war  with  Mexico  progressed 


and  Knropc  became  hopelessly  involved  in 
the  widespread  revolutions  of  1 848, Walker 
and  his  friends  insisted  that  the  time  had 
come  for  the  United  States  to  realize  that 
"high  destiny  "which  Providence  had  marked 
out  for  her, —  namely,  to  "spread  her  free 
institutions ' '  over  the  whole  of  the  North 
American  continent.1 

The  influence  of  the  West  and  South  was 
made  to  bear  upon  congress  until  it  was 
about  to  yield  to  the  demand  for  seizing 
all  Mexico;  Walker  and  Buchanan  pressed 
the  President  in  almost  daily  cabinet  meet 
ings.  Polk  recalled  Trist,  the  minister  to 
Mexico,  in  order  to  change  his  policy.  Trist 
refused,  under  advice  of  General  Scott,  to 
heed  the  command  of  his  Government — con 
duct  unprecedented  in  all  our  diplomatic  his 
tory —  and  negotiated  a  treaty  which  was 
hastened  to  Washington  in  February,  1848. 
When  this  arrived,  Polk  and  his  advisers 
were  angry,  but  helpless.  The  treaty  guar 
anteed  all  the  concessions  that  had  been 
demanded.  That  Europe  could  not  interfere 
was  now  the  opinion  of  all,  especially  of  Cass 
and  the  senate  leaders;  and  to  make  the 
course  of  aggrandizement  easier,  an  agent  of 
Yucatan  was  on  the  ground  begging  the 
President  to  annex  that  region  to  the  United 
States. 

Under  these  circumstances  Walker  ex- 
» Quaife,  M.  M.,  Diary  of  James  K.  Polk,  III,  28. 
25 


pected  to  win  and  to  see  all  Mexico  brought 
under  the  flag  of  his  country.  But  the  Trist 
treaty  could  not  be  thrown  into  the  waste 
basket,  as  Walker  and  Buchanan  urged.  It 
was  sent  to  the  senate,  where  it  was  to  be 
accepted ;  but  a  few  days  later  the  cabinet 
recommended  that  the  United  States  army 
and  navy  take  formal  possession  of  Yucatan, 
knowing  that  this  would  undo  all  that  had 
been  agreed  to  in  the  treaty,  and  bring  at 
least  the  dismemberment  of  Mexico.  Cass, 
Hannegan  of  Indiana,  and  Douglas  of  Illi 
nois,  all  urged  this  step,  and  it  was  only 
by  a  sudden  move  of  Mexico  which  satis 
fied  Yucatan,  that  we  escaped  the  ex 
treme  results  of  the  war  upon  our  southern 
neighbor — the  expansion  of  our  southern 
boundary  to  Central  America,  in  the  year 
1848. 

As  secretary  of  the  treasury  Walker  car 
ried  into  effect  the  independent  treasury 
scheme,  which  is  practically  identical  with 
our  present  system  of  subtreasuries ;  and 
his  revenue  reform  bill,  which  has  been 
called  the  best  of  American  tariffs,  was 
enacted  in  1846,  and  it  remained  in  force, 
with  only  slight  modification  in  1857,  until 
the  exigencies  of  a  great  war  compelled  a 
change  of  system.  It  filled  the  national  cof 
fers  as  they  had  never  before  been  filled,  so 
that  the  financing  of  the  war  with  Mexico 
was  a  comparatively  easy  matter.  Walker* s 
26 


administration  of  the  treasury  of  the  United 
States  was  made  the  subject  of  encomium  in 
the  British  parliament  by  no  less  an  author 
ity  than  Sir  Robert  Peel.  That  he  was 
scrupulously  clean-handed  has  never  been 
denied,  though  he  allowed  August  Belmont, 
the  representative  of  the  Rothschilds  in  New 
York,  and  William  W.  Corcoran,  the  Wash 
ington  capitalist  and  public  benefactor,  to 
take  liberties  with  the  public  funds  which 
were  the  subject  of  anxious  inquiry  on  the 
part  of  the  President,  who  was,  however, 
usually  ignored  in  matters  of ' '  high  finance. ' ' l 
Walker's  old  friends,  the  Mississippi  land 
speculators,  were  also  allowed  to  collect 
some  very  bad  claims,  which  caused  Polk  to 
make  ugly  entries  in  his  diary,2  but  I  have 
been  unable  to  find  any  evidence  of  a  more 
serious  protest.  What  is  a  President  to  do 
when  .he  has  a  most  imperious  secretary  of 
the  treasury,  who  at  the  same  time  domi 
nates  and  controls  the  leaders  of  his  party  in 
congress  ?  A  confidential  diary  is  about  the 
only  recourse. 

A  sad  mistake  of  Walker  during  these 
days  of  power  was  the  placing  of  Jefferson 
Davis  in  nomination  for  a  seat  in  congress. 
Davis  was  young,  able,  and  he  proved  to  be 
popular  in  Mississippi  beyond  all  calcula 
tion.  Resigning  his  seat  in  the  house  of 

1  Quaife,  Diary  of  James  K.  Polk,  III,  164-167. 
*  Ibid.,  II,  128,129. 

27 


representatives  he  hastened  off  to  the  war  in 
the  autumn  of  1 846,  and  in  the  spring  of  1 847 
he  was  the  hero  of  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista 
and  was  heralded  throughout  the  nation  as, 
next  to  Taylor,  the  greatest  general  of  the 
day.  When  Davis  returned  to  Mississippi 
he  was  sent  to  the  United  States  senate  by 
the  unanimous  vote  of  the  legislature.  A 
year  later,  when  the  Whigs  came  into  power, 
not  to  undo  the  work  of  the  Polk  adminis 
tration  but  to  approve  it,  Walker  was  out 
of  office  and  Davis  was  the  great  man  in 
Mississippi.  The  retiring  secretary  saw  no 
better  outlook  than  to  open  a  law  office  in 
Washington  City.1 

The  man  who  had  made  Polk  and  guided 
the  country  in  its  first  era  of  conquest  now 
took  up  the  career  of  a  lobbyist  and  a  lawyer, 
practicing  before  the  departments  he  had  so 
recently  dominated.  Such  are  the  extremes  . 
of  fortune  of  the  American  leader.  He  never 
returned  to  the  planter  life  of  the  lower 
South  with  its  lordly  ways ;  and,  if  we  may 
believe  a  letter  now  in  the  Van  Buren  manu 
scripts,  he  repented  of  some  of  his  former 
enthusiasm  for  slavery  and  its  influence  in 
public^ affairs.2  He  might  well  have  added 
some  regret  for  the  unscrupulous  haste  with 

1  The  Free  Trader,  a  Mississippi  newspaper  of  much 
influence,  March  17, 1849. 

2  Van  Buren  Manuscripts,  letter  of  Frank  P.  Blair, 
June  10,  1849. 

28 


which  he  had  overthrown  his  friend  Van 
Buren  in  the  Baltimore  convention. 

From  1849  to  1857  the  "Wizard  of 
Mississippi"  led  the  monotonous  life  of  his 
somewhat  dubious  calling  in  Washington, 
hoping  all  the  while  to  find  a  way  back  to 
the  exciting  business  of  public  leadership. 
Twice  only  in  this  period,  so  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  discover,  did  he  find  himself  a 
subject  for  headlines  in  the  newspapers: 
once  when  he  went  to  England  and  cleverly 
sold  that  bond-loving  people  about  a  million 
dollars'  worth  of  railroad  securities,  enticing 
his  quarry  by  buying,  with  the  proceeds  of 
his  operations,  some  thousands  of  tons  of 
railroad  iron  which  he  resold  in  New  York 
for  good  American  money;1  and  a  second 
time,  when  he  was  asked  by  his  erstwhile 
friend,  Jefferson  Davis,  to  go  to  China  as 
commissioner  of  the  United  States.  Davis 
was  now  the  power  behind  the  Pierce  ad 
ministration,  as  Walker  had  been  behind  that 
of  Polk.  Somehow  the  appointment  was  not 
made,  Walker  giving  out  as  the  reason  the 
failure  of  the  Government  to  provide  him 
with  a  national  ship  for  his  transportation.2 
Just  at  the  close  of  these  eight  years  of  pri 
vate  life  he  accepted  a  contingent  fee  from 

^etcher,  John,  a  pamphlet  in  the  library  of  the 
University  of  Chicago. 

2  Brief  sketch  of  his  own  career  by  Walker  himself, 
in  National  Intelligencer ,  Nov.  12,  1869. 


a  California  mining  company  which  yielded 
in  a  short  time  a  harvest  of  some  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  dollars.1 

If  he  ever  repented  fully  his  devotion  to 
the  Democratic  party  of  that  day  he  did 
not  make  it  known  to  the  leaders,  for  in  the 
campaign  of  James  Buchanan,  whose  nomi 
nation  was  manipulated  by  Henry  A.  Wise, 
John  Slidell,  and  August  Belmont,  he  was 
a  most  effective  stump  speaker  and  apolo 
gist  of  slavery.  As  evidence  of  the  appre 
ciation  of  the  new  President  he  was  tendered 
appointment  to  the  most  critical  post  in 
the  country,  that  of  governor  of  Kansas, 
1  'bleeding  Kansas."  The  President  made 
a  personal  matter  of  this  appointment  and 
urged  acceptance  in  a  way  most  flattering 
to  Walker.  This  time  the  tender  was  re 
ceived,  and  important  papers  of  the  country 
hailed  the  former  Democratic  leader  as  a 
statesman  who  would  solve  the  problem  of 
slavery  in  the  territories.  Harper  s  Weekly, 
already  playing  the  role  of  political  prophet, 
declared  that  Walker  would  return  from 
Kansas  successful  and  a  candidate  for  the 
presidency,  which  high  position  the  country 
could  scarcely  deny  him.2 

The  new  governor  of  Kansas  made  a 
point  of  visiting  Chicago  on  his  way  to  his 
post  and  while  in  this  city  he  was  in  confer- 

1  Claiborne,  J.  F.  L.,  History  of  Mississippi,  422. 
*  Harper's  Weekly,  April  II,  1857. 

30 


ence  with  Senator  Douglas,  the  one  man 
whom  Buchanan  feared,  and  who  had  been 
cast  off  by  the  southern  masters  of  the 
convention  which  nominated  him.  It  is 
possible,  however,  that  the  President,  at 
the  beginning  of  his  administration,  was  in 
agreement  with  Douglas  that  an  honest  ref 
erendum  of  the  slavery  problem  to  the  actual 
settlers  in  Kansas  would  bring  a  final  and 
satisfactory  solution.  If  so,  Walker  was  only 
acting  in  good  faith  when  he  made  a  confi 
dant  of  the  man  who  had  most  reason  to 
distrust  those  who  had  come  into  power.  At 
any  rate  the  new  governor  went  to  his  dif 
ficult  task  in  full  harmony  with  the  author 
of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  and  an  avowed 
candidate  for  the  nomination  of  his  party 
in  i860.1 

Walker's  inaugural  greatly  pleased  the 
moderate  men  in  the  warlike  territory,  and 
it  became  clear  that  he  was  endeavoring  to 
carry  out  the  liberal  instructions  which  the 
cabinet  had  given  him.  But  it  is  also  clear 
from  the  evidence  that  we  have  that  he 
intended  to  return  to  Washington  the  fol 
lowing  year  a  United  States  senator. 2  He 
asked  this  honor,  it  seems,  of  each  of  the 
parties  to  the  conflict;  and  I  think  we  are 
justified  in  believing  that  the  southern  ele- 

1  Covode  Report,  105-6. 

8  Brown,  G.  Vf.,  Reminiscences  of  Robert  J.  fPalker, 
84-90. 

31 


ment  was  warned  against  this  move,  while 
the  free  state  party  promised  him  the  cov 
eted  honor.  His  decision  as  to  voting  in 
elections  about  to  be  held  was  in  favor  of 
the  free  state  men,  though  this  was  not 
inconsistent  with  the  known  wishes  of  the 
administration  when  he  received  his  appoint 
ment.  From  the  day  that  Walker's  posi 
tion  became  known  as  an  actual  fact  the 
southern  men  in  Kansas  and  Missouri  made 
relentless  war  upon  him,  while  to  the  op 
posing  party  he  became  a  hero.  The  Le- 
compton  constitution  was  naturally  opposed 
by  Governor  Walker,  and  in  the  autumn, 
convinced  that  the  President  had  changed 
his  ground,  he  returned  to  Washington  to 
insist  upon  his  point.  The  way  to  the  capi 
tal  led  Walker  to  Chicago  once  again.  And 
a  strange  meeting  took  place  in  this  city  that 
October,  if  we  may  believe  a  contemporary 
witness.  Greeley,  Seward,Weed,  and  Doug 
las  held  a  friendly  conference  here  and 
decided  upon  the  line  of  procedure  for  the 
next  congress.  Walker,  I  am  convinced, 
was  also  at  the  meeting,  though  this  is  not 
as  yet  susceptible  of  proof.1 

After  this  conference  the  great  men  of 
the  East  journeyed  homeward;  Walker  went 
to  Washington  to  await  events,  while  Doug 
las  came  on  a  little  later,  big  with  the  fore 
knowledge  of  the  coming  conflict.  The 

1  Newton,  Jos.  F.,  Lincoln  and  Herndon,  1912,  p.  215. 
32 


latter  visited  the  President  for  the  first  time 
since  the  inauguration  to  demand  his  repu 
diation  of  the  Lecompton  constitution.  The 
demand  was  indignantly  refused  and  Doug 
las  fired  the  opening  gun  of  the  campaign 
of  1 860  in  the  senate  on  December  9,  1857. 
Walker  resigned  a  week  later ;  while  Greeley, 
Weed,  and  Seward  began  the  manoeuvres 
in  the  press  of  the  East  which  would  have 
resulted  in  the  effacement  of  Lincoln,  a 
dangerous  man  to  Seward,1  and  in  the  re 
election  of  Douglas  to  the  senate.  What 
Walker  was  to  receive  I  am  unable  to  say, 
but  he  hoped  for  the  vice-presidency  and 
he  had  good  reason  to  expect  nomination 
for  the  office. 

Walker  was  again  a  stranded  politician. 
The  only  effect  of  the  sojourn  in  Kansas  had 
been  the  casting  of  a  bomb  into  the  ranks  of 
the  powerful  and  well-disciplined  Democ 
racy,  which  made  of  it  two  bitter  factions, 
each  seeking  the  overthrow  of  the  other, 
and  which  also  opened  the  way  to  the  White 
House  for  the  young  and  more  deserving 
Republican  party.  Walker  did  not  take 
an  active  part  in  the  conflict  of  1860,  though 
he  was  known  to  be  a  supporter  of  the 
"Little  Giant."  Davis  and  the  powerful 
group  of  southerners  who  controlled  Buch 
anan  spurned  him  as  a  traitor  to  their 
camp. 

though  this  was  not  recognized  at  the  time. 
33 


r 


When,  in  the  early  months  of  i86i,war 
became  inevitable,  Walker,  like  Douglas, 
gave  all  his  influence  to  the  Lincoln  admin 
istration,  and  in  1862  he  was  sent  to  Europe 
as  special  financial  agent  of  the  Federal 
Government,  bearing  a  letter  of  credence 
from  President  Lincoln.  In  London,  where 
he  set  up  his  headquarters,  he  assumed  a 
dignity  comparable  only  to  that  of  the  Aus 
trian  ambassador.1  Charles  Francis  Adams 
he  patronized  openly  and  irritated  beyond 
endurance.2  His  mission  was,  however,  of 
the  gravest  importance.  The  Confederacy 
was  then  borrowing  money  both  in  Eng 
land  and  France  without  difficulty,  while 
the  finances  of  the  United  States  showed  a 
weakness  and  derangement  which  augured 
the  success  of  their  enemy.  England  and 
France  treated  the  representatives  of  the 
Lincoln  administration  with  ill-concealed 
hostility.  The  purpose  of  Walker's  appoint 
ment  was  to  break  down  the  credit  of  the 
South  and  at  the  same  time  to  sell  the  bonds 
of  the  United  States. 

"All  is  fair  in  love  and  war' 'runs  an 
old  adage,  and  Walker  acted  without  scru 
ple  upon  this  principle.  He  began  by  show 
ing  conclusively  that  Jefferson  Davis,  not 
himself,  had  been  responsible  for  the  whole- 

1  Claiborne,  History  of  Mississippi,  422. 

2  Walker*  s  London  Letters  — A  pamphlet  published 
under  the  title,  American  Slavery  and  Finance,  pp.  1-5 . 

34 


sale  repudiation  of  the  Mississippi  bonds  in 
the  early  forties.1  Davis  had  risen  to  prom 
inence  in  his  state,  fighting  the  repudiating 
movement  which  Walker  had  actually  coun 
seled.  But  what  gave  Walker  a  great  ad 
vantage  was  the  fact  that  many  people  in 
England  had  lost  their  money  by  the  con 
duct  of  Mississippi  and  that  Davis,  labor 
ing  under  the  false  view  of  the  politician 
in  such  things,  had  defended  and  justified 
in  the  United  States  senate  an  act  of  his 
state  which  he  had  at  the  time  condemned.2 
No  matter;  financiers  in  England  and  else 
where  believed  the  plausible  story.  Walker 
printed  at  government  expense  thousands 
of  copies  of  his  pamphlets.  They  were 
translated  into  German  and  French  and 
circulated  on  the  continent.  The  leading 
newspapers,  like  the  London  Times,  "car 
ried' 'Walker's  articles  on  the  Confederate 
securities,  and  at  the  same  time,  or  during 
the  year  1863,  he  published  the  most  glowing 
account  of  the  soundness  of  the  Federal 
finances  and  of  the  resources  of  the  North 
on  which  her  securities  were  based.3 

Whether  we  credit  the  speedy  change  of 
conditions  in  Europe  to  Walker  or  not,  it 
must  be  allowed  that  his  work  was  of  the 

1  Walker,  American  Slavery  and  Finance,  the  third 
London  letter,  pages  I  to  5 . 

2Dodd,  William  E.,  Life  of  Jefferson  Davis,  60-61. 
'Washington  Daily  Chronicle,  Sept.  II,  1863. 

35 


r 


greatest  importance,  for  in  the  shortest 
space  of  time  Confederate  bonds  lost  all 
value  in  London  and  Paris,  while  Walker 
himself  sold  two  hundred  and  fifty  mil 
lions'  worth  of  United  States  "five-twen 
ties,  ' '  remitting  the  proceeds  to  the  treas 
ury  in  gold  at  the  beginning,  I  believe,  of  the 
year  1864. 

The  Confederates  always  attributed  the 
failure  of  their  cause  in  large  measure  to 
the  breakdown  of  their  credit  in  Europe, 
and  it  seems  not  at  all  unreasonable  to  as 
sume  that  our  little  ' '  Wizard  of  Mississippi ' ' 
was  the  most  important  individual  influence 
in  bringing  about  that  result.  I,  for  one,  am 
tempted  to  say  that  his  work  was  as  decisive 
in  bringing  the  Confederacy  to  its  knees  in 
that  sad  winter  of  1863-64  as  that  of  the 
general  who  commanded  at  Gettysburg,1 
for,  as  is  well  known,  Secretary  Chase  was 
at  the  very  point  several  times  of  urging  the 
recognition  of  the  South  because  he  could 
not  find  the  money  necessary  to  keep  up  the 
gigantic  struggle. 

It  is  the  rule  in  politics  to  use  human 
vessels  until  they  cease  to  be  of  value. 
Such  was  the  case  with  Walker.  After 
spending  his  second  fortune  in  "riotous 
living ' '  for  his  country  abroad,  he  returned 

1The  Washington  Daily  Chronicle,  inspired  by 
Secretary  Chase,  said,  Sept.  n,  1863  :  "Few  men  in 
public  or  private  station  have  rendered  greater  serv 
ice  to  the  country." 

36 


to  Washington  to  be  half,  if  not  wholly, 
spurned  by  his  government.  The  South 
regarded  him  as  a  traitor;  and  now  the 
North,  whom  he  served  with  a  zeal  which 
allowed  of  no  defeat,  seemed  to  be  ashamed 
of  him.  He  took  up  his  work  of  lobbyist 
again  and  more  than  once  he  had  the  pleas 
ure  of  seeing  something  of  the  "seamy" 
inside  of  things  at  the  capital. 

As  Professor  Dunning,  of  Columbia  Uni 
versity,  has  recently  shown,1  Walker's  serv 
ices  proved  very  useful,  both  to  his  own 
government  and  to  that  of  Russia,  in  the 
spring  of  1 868,  when  the  house  of  represen 
tatives  refused  to  make  an  appropriation  to 
pay  for  Alaska.  Secretary  Seward  and  De 
Stoeckl,  minister  of  the  Czar's  government 
in  Washington,  were  in  distress.  De  Stoeckl 
engaged  John  W.Forney,  editor  of  the  Wash 
ington  Chronicle,  the  leading  paper  at  the 
capital,  to  advocate  the  immediate  payment 
of  the  money  called  for  in  the  treaty,  already 
ratified  by  the  senate.  The  minister  paid 
Forney  $30,000  for  his  services.  He  then 
employed  Walker,  for  a  consideration  of 
$26,000  in  gold,  to  "  engineer"  the  desired 
measure  through  the  recalcitrant  house. 
The  able  ex-senator  plied  the  arts  known  to 
be  effective  with  many  statesmen  and  with 
the  aid  of  the  resources  at  his  command  he  per 
suaded  the  congress,  which  was  aflame  with 

1 American  Political  Science  Quarterly,  October,  1912. 
37 


indignation  at  President  Johnson  for  an  al 
leged  understanding  with  the  defeated  south 
erners,  to  vote  the  appropriation;  $200,000 
were  spent  by  the  two  governments  to  secure 
the  necessary  act  of  congress,  and  Secretary 
Seward  is  on  record  as  saying  that  the  price 
of  votes  ran  as  high  as  $10,000.!  Again,  it 
might  be  regarded  as  invidious  in  the  stu 
dent  to  read  the  list  of  the  famous  names 
implicated  in  this  affair. 

But  it  does  seem  to  me,  as  I  read  the 
evidence,  that  it  was  a  mean  thing  in  Seward 
and  De  Stoeckl  not  to  tell  Walker  whom 
they  had  bribed.  He  was,  therefore,  put 
into  the  embarrassing  attitude  of  soliciting 
the  price  of  dishonor  from  his  superiors  in 
the  business  even  when  this  was  unneces 
sary.  For  example,  Walker,  observing  to 
De  Stoeckl  how  great  was  the  service  of  his 
friend,  Forney,  in  the  editorials  of  his  pa 
per,  asked  for  a  substantial  reward.  Three 
thousand  dollars  were  handed  him  for  the 
editor,  and  he  was  instructed  to  say  in  pay 
ing  it  that  the  Czar's  government  highly 
appreciated  the  services  of  the  great  news 
paper.  Walker  innocently  urged  the  accept 
ance  of  the  paltry  sum  upon  his  friend, 
who  declared  in  reply  that  his  high  position 
and  unsullied  integrity  would  not  allow  of 

1  Dunning  has  found  a  memorandum  of  this  in  a 
paper  in  the  handwriting  of  President  Johnson,  in  John 
son  Manuscripts,  Library  of  Congress. 

38 


such  an  act.  Walker  went  to  his  grave 
thinking  that  there  was  at  least  one  honest 
man  in  Washington. 

Our  hero  closed  his  career  as  he  had 
begun  it — true  to  his  extreme  nationalist 
ideals  and  unscrupulous  imperialism.  In  the 
spring  of  1869,  when  Charles  Sumner 
stirred  the  country  to  the  highest  pitch  of 
excitement  and  anger  against  Great  Britain 
by  his  speech  in  the  senate  demanding  the 
cession  of  all  Canada  as  indemnity  for  the 
injury  done  American  shipping  during  the 
war  by  southern  cruisers,  Walker  wrote 
articles  for  the  press  arguing  that  Canada 
was  only  a  ' '  selvedge  of  the  United  States ' ' 
and  urging  the  people  of  the  Dominion  to 
revolt  and  throw  off  the  shameful  yoke  of 
England  and  join  their  brethern  of  the 
Republic.  His  appeals,  made  with  all  the 
glow  and  ardor  of  his  earlier  years,  were 
widely  read  and  influential,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  England  had  loaned  so  much 
money  to  the  sore-pressed  Republic  through 
the  agency  of  Walker  himself. 

Twenty  years  before  Sumner  had  de 
nounced  the  imperialism  of  the  Polk  admin 
istration,  of  which  Walker  was  the  mentor; 
in  1869  the  famous  New  England  abolition 
ist  .joined  hands  with  Walker  in  this  plan 
to  force  war  upon  Great  Britian,  friend  and 
benefactor  of  both  men,  in  order  that  the 
American  flag  might  have  sway  over  a  peo- 

39 


pie  who  were  already  better  governed  than 
those  of  the  United  States.  Truly,  politics 
makes  strange  bedfellows,  and  never  did 
stranger  companions  lie  down  together  than 
Charles  Sumner  of  Massachusetts  and  Rob 
ert  J.  Walker  of  Mississippi. 

Half  a  year  later,  November  II,  1869, 
at  the  age  of  68,  when  the  country  was  be 
coming  aroused  over  the  scandal  of  the 
"Alaskan  deal,"  the  "Wizard  of  Missis 
sippi,  ' '  worn  out  with  the  toils  of  an  event 
ful  career,  answered  the  last  call.  He  was 
buried  in  Oak  Hill  cemetery,  where,  as  I 
have  already  said,  his  remains  rested  in  an 
unmarked  grave  for  nearly  forty  years,  and 
where  his  simple  marble  slab  gives  only  the 
name  of  the  man  whose  remains  lie  beneath 
it,  but  not  an  inkling  of  the  importance  of 
the  career  thus  commemorated.  And  when 
I  visited  the  cemetery  some  time  ago  the 
keepers  and  attendants  insisted  that  no  Rob 
ert  Walker  had  ever  been  buried  in  those 
grounds ! 

Thus  runs  the  story  of  our  greatest  im 
perialist,  of  one  of  the  Nation's  saviors  in 
time  of  danger.  It  emphasizes  to  me,  at 
least,  the  old  saying  that  history  is  stranger 
than  fiction. 


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